Working on the Railroad

This is a picture of my sad, sad flowerbed. This picture is AFTER I spent two days pulling grass out of the flowerbed.

Mom and I went to Lowe's and bought six plants and six bags of mulch and three rolls of weed control.









Saturday Charlie and I got out and started working the weed control. I had saved boxes and boxes of paper from the move. So we planted the three hibiscus, and layered the paper and covered it with the weed control.
















Then we poured on the mulch. We only got this first section done when we realized we were going to need more mulch. So back to Lowe's we went, where Charlie got flower happy. We came back with 8 bags of mulch, 12 lillies, a flat of verbena, 3 one gallon african daisies, 9 small crotons, and three lantana.









John loves to jump in and help. Right as we're finishing things up. :)


















This is as far as we got by the end of the day on Saturday. We broke at 5:00 so we could shower up and take the kids to play putt-putt golf, and laser tag. I can't show you those pictures, because I forgot my camera. The good news is that, it was 3-D golf in blacklight, and laser tag outside in the dark, so you wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway. This morning, we could hardly move. Keep in mind, I've already put in two days, so I've been limping around the house for a few days. Now Charlie feels my pain. Today we finished planting, and mulching, plus Charlie had to dig a trench and put a drain line from the down spout under the sidewalk to drain out in the yard. Then after we went out for dinner, he went out and mowed the front yard and weed eated. Back to school on Monday and the daily grind continues. Tomorrow, I'll show you the finished product.




A.J. thinks she's the Queen of Sheba.

Duece of Cakes

We made our very first scratch cake today for my birthday. It's a Chocolate Mint Cake with Chocolate Mint frosting from the Nestle Toll House recipe book. John helped me make the cake, Melee' greased and floured the pans, Peach helped me make the frosting, and Ace helped me frost the cake. Of course everyone helped me eat it! We declared it DELICIOUS! Not beautiful, but definitely tasty.


This was my best birthday yet! When I got up I found that Charlie and the boys not only stayed up till midnight watching Lord of the Rings, they also decorated the kitchen and hung clovers all around, complete with a princess crown! Went to the Dr. got a clean bill of health! Got a new Tony Romo jersey, some Paula Deen cookware, and a gift card to Old Navy! For dinner Mom came over and we had steaks on the grill, some roasted potatoes, a salad and garlic bread.

I think I could get the hang of this birthday thang! :)

What Cures Pneumonia?

Chocolate covered strawberries!
(Sigh!)

Have I mentioned, lately that I have the best In-laws!

I FEEL GOOD...

I DIDN'T THINK THAT I WOULD....

I FEEL NICE, LIKE SUGAR AND SPICE...

I FEEL GOOD, SO GOOD, I DON'T HAVE FLU! DUM, DUM, DUM!

Happy Breathing!

I almost feel human. Much better today. I went back to the Doc for a recheck, they were kind of worried. I looked so much improved that he gave me a big hug when he walked in the door.
Trinity Mother Frances is just like Cheers, and I'm Norm. Everybody knows my name. I walk in and they all shout "Justine!"

My orders are to keep doing what I'm doing, and I have to do breathing treatments for a MONTH! At this point though, I'll stand on my head if that's what they tell me to do because there is no way I can ever have this again. Talk about grateful. Never has a person been so grateful for being able to take a breath. That whole oxygen thing is NOT overrated! And evidently my body LOVES oxygen. I go back and have another chest x-ray on my birthday. Oxygen, X-ray, cake. I told ya'll this thing would end with cake, didn't I.

Mom went with me and said "No exercise, right?" (As if I'm complaining about not getting my workout in.) And he says, "As tolerated. For instance, if you went home and got on your bike and drove out of the drive-way, you'd probably fall down halfway down the block. I call that a sign from above."

At this point I need to take a minute and do a public service announcement and say, for everybody who still has a pack of cigarettes in their possession. Shame on you. Shame, shame, shame on you. Put em down, walk away, take a big ol' breath of air. I'll say it again, I have never felt so horrible in my whole life. I detest guilt as a form of manipulation, but shame, shame, shame.

John's Spring Concert is about to get underway. He was of course disappointed that I wouldn't be coming, but when I had to bow out, that meant none of the kids went either. He was pretty upset. But hopefully Charlie will get some of it on video.

More Thoughts on Pneumonia. Don't Worry, I've Still Got a Million of Them.

I'm cautiously optimistic today. It's been a pretty good breathing day.

Yesterday I went back to the Doc cause it still wasn't good. They were suprised to see me. I got blood work and another x-ray, after he looked at everything, he came in shaking his head and I said, "I'm gonna live, aren't I?" "Yep, but it's gonna be a rough couple of days." He tried to get me a hospital bed but they didn't have any room at the inn. My only option was to go sit in the ER. And those are my standing orders if I get any worse. Straight to the E.R. But I got two more shots and we upped my breathing treatments to five a day. I had another good nights sleep and woke up feeling a little better. The worst part today is just that the breathing treatments upset my stomach, so just overall I still feel crappy. But I'm hungrier today, so I think I'm coming around. I feel like overall I'm coughing less, but that feeling goes away quickly when I start having one of those hacking fits.

Tomorrow is Tyler's Spring Band Concert, and I had resigned myself to not going. But tonight, I'm thinking maybe I could make it. It's just whether or not I had one of those coughing fits in the middle of the concert....

The Z-dog keeps a smile on my face while I'm recouperating. With things like, "If we had bars on the walls right here, and then some bars, over there, I could just swing, swing, swing." That's my boy. He also insulted my number one Nana today, I was still in bed when she got here and when she walked in he said, "Why are you here?" and she said something about helping out to which he replied, "You should be invited before you come over." I'm gonna have to put the smack-down on that boy! If he runs off the lady that makes me toast and scrambled eggs when I don't feel good enough to do it myself, I'm voting him off the island.

One for the Grandkids

Hopefully this blog will be saved for you guys in one form or another and when you get to this entry, I want you to bookmark it for me, because this will be the section to read "When Nini got Pneumonia."

One day your Mom's and Dad's are gonna say, "Come on kids, get in the car, it's time to go see Nini and Pawpaw." and you guys are gonna groan and somebody near the back will say "I don't want to go to Nini and Pawpaw's" and somebody's smart Momma will say, "But Nini always has chocolate cake and ice cream when we come." and somebody will pop-off and say, "Yeah, but Nini will want to talk about the time she got Pneumonia!" and the crowd will do a collective eye roll.

You guys can read all the entries so that when you come over, you can join in and commiserate with me. And when Nini gets teary-eyed at the part where they would have liked to put her in the hospital but there weren't any beds, you can pat me on the back and say, "Take a big deep breath Nini, and let's have some more chocolate cake!" And you'll make a little old lady so happy, because I see this thing ending with cake and ice cream.

Guess What I'm Giving Up For Lent? PNEUMONIA!

EASIEST

LENT

EVER!

CAN I GET A WHAT-WHAT FROM THE SENIOR SECTION??!!

How Do I Feel?

Like I've had it.

I'm at the end of my rope.

How long can a person be sick without going crazy.

About 8 days.

I went for my recheck yesterday and I'm feeling better. I've made it up the scale from "speed of a sloth" to "speed of a turtle".

P.A. Mike said, "You want to see your x-rays?"
"Oh! Can I?"
"Sure! You should, it's a Doozie!" (I like Mike the P.A.)
So I got to see my lung that looks like it's almost filled to the top with smoke.
"Do I have to cough all that out!?"
"Oh no, it just clears up." (thank the lord, cause that would literally be hawking up a lung.)

Mom had spent the day with me, so she helped me put the house to rights. And by help me, I mean she put the house to rights, while I waited for her to sit down so we could watch Celebrity Apprentice on my DVR.

When I got home from my appt. she brought the kids home from school and we lined everybody out and I took Melee' with me to go to Ace's first soccer practice. He was my legs and lungs on the field. It was slightly amusing watching them herd chickens for a while. The best part was that we're practicing by a lake, the field is fenced off with chain-link and just when she had gotten every one of the five year olds into position, one kid yell's "I SEE A GATOR!" and they all go tearing over to the chainlink fence. Priceless.

Then when we got home Mom was gone and Charlie was finshing grilling the chicken I had left for him. And with the help of two tums and a prilosec (Dr. approved) I was able to eat a small piece of chicken and some green beans. All in all sounds like a two-thumbs up kind of day right?

There's just something about going to bed that's just killing it for me. I was exhausted when I got home. I haven't driven a car in a week! A WEEK YA'LL! I could hardly hold my head up at eight. After I kissed the Little's goodnight, I hung in till around 8:30 and then finally just had to give in and go to bed. My body is tired, but I'm not tired. I want to go to bed and sleep, but I can't. I've had my breathing treatment, I just want to lay down. And then the coughing starts. It's not gut wrenching or anything, just a nusance. And I cough and I turn and I cough some more and I roll over again and then I blow my nose and then I cough some more and then I get a drink of water and wai t - I got it - I got it - no. More coughing. cough. cough. roll. shift. cough. cough. 20 minutes later. potty break. We start over again. By nine thirty my mind is racing like I'm running a marathon.

What is WRONG WITH YOU!
I'M NOT TIRED!
YES YOU ARE, YOUR EXHAUSTED GO TO SLEEP!
I CAN'T, YOU WON'T QUIT COUGHING!
YES I CAN just give me a sec.
IT BEEN AN HOUR!
It's all got to settle to the horizontal plane.
YOUR LUNG'S NOT THAT BIG!
YOU HEARD HIM SAY IT'S A DOOZIE!
IF YOU'RE NOT ASLEEP IN FIVE MINUTES, I'M GETTING BACK UP.
OKAY THEN SHUT-UP!

So when I got up at three-thirty to go to the potty and started coughing as soon as I layed down, I should of just gotten right back up. But I rolled around for an hour before I decided to get up and have a banana and make a glass of ice tea. If I drink another glass of water I'm gonna hurl. So I decided to take my crazy talk and write it down because I don't think I should be eating banana's, drinking tea and and talking crazy to myself at four-thirty in the morning. I'm not sure the Dr. would think I'm getting well.

Flu, Shmoo

I went back to the Doc at 1:00 today and he says I have "Big Honkin' Pneumonia". A breathing treatment, two shots and new anti-biotics. I'm so relieved. I felt so bad this morning, that I thought I was a little bit crazy. I've been waiting for the clinic to open since I got up sometime around seven this morning. We got there 15 minutes early and were fifth in line and by the time they opened the door at one, there were thirteen people in line. Wow!